PROPERTY developers and real estate agents in Cyprus

With just 558 contracts of sale being deposited at the Land Registry during February, compared to 1581 during February last year, Cyprus property sales have plummeted by an incredible 65%.

During the first two months of this year developers and estate agents managed to sell a mere 1,016 properties, compared to the 3,196 properties they sold during the same period in 2008, 2,940 in 2007 and 2,462 in 2006.

According to real estate agent Elias Danos “The global financial crisis, which has affected the Cyprus economy too, the uncertainty for its depth and the lack of liquidity in the market has made buyers more careful and hesitant.”

“The crisis affects all cities. Sales in Paphos, Larnaca and Famagusta were affected the most due to their dependence on the foreign market. However, neither Limassol nor Nicosia remained unaffected by the developments,” he noted.

Turkish Cypriots and the settlers puzzle

No doubt, it was a rescue operation for Turkish Cypriots at the time. The years went by and it became very apparent that the operation was not so innocent. It had a wider coverage as a tailor-made occupation project, in which almost all possessions of Turkish Cypriots (including people’s hearts and minds) were held hostage.

In the first couple of years, the forcible population transfers took place. The pretext given by the Turkish government was to meet requirements in the lack of a farming workforce, although there wasn’t really such a necessity.

Following their arrival, the land captured from displaced Greek Cypriots was distributed to settlers free of charge. Village names in north Cyprus were immediately replaced with new ones in parallel with the incoming population’s original settlement names in Turkey. The gates of north were wide opened to everybody from “the Mainland”.